General-Colonel Alexander Nikolayevich Zelin, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Federation Air Force, sits in the cockpit of a B-52 during a recent visit to U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command at Louisiana’s Barksdale Air Force Base. Most of us of a certain age are amazed to see a Russian general sitting at the helm of a Stratofortress, a plane developed and built to kill Russians. My Air Force pals like to point out something else: that airplane is as old as he is! Indeed, the first B-52 went operational in March 1954, when little Niko was 10 months old.